At last week's fansite mixer held at Blizzard, I asked Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas about the mount changes, and here's a (summarized) version of his reply:

The mounts and achievements tied to the Siege of Orgrimmar raid are being handled differently than those from past raid tiers.

The Glory of the Orgrimmar Raider achievement only requires players to complete non-heroic achievements. The devs weren't really happy with how the Glory of the Raider mounts were playing out in recent tiers, and decided to change how they worked. They mostly ended up being earned by a subset of the people who were fully clearing the zone on heroic already. People typically would finish killing all the bosses on heroic and then take a week off to kill them on normal mode for achievements--which made raiders who disliked achievements unhappy that they were missing out on loot upgrades.

When the Glory of the Raider mounts were initially created, the Normal/Heroic issue wasn't a problem because Naxxramas had no heroic difficulty (although, the devs aren't fans of some achievements like the Thaddius one.) However, problems started in Ulduar, when you had to decide between doing something like Freya +3 or or achievements like Con-speed-atory (25 player) or Deforestation (25 player).

With Flex raiding being a separate lockout, those players who really like achievements can get them done on this easier difficulty level without affecting heroic progression or loot acquisition. And since Flex can handle any number of raiders, you don't have to worry about leaving friends out if an odd number of people like the achievements.

Heroic Garrosh will also have a 100% droprate on a special mount, which will be nerfed to a 2% droprate when the next tier comes out. This system for heroic mounts has been used previously for rewards like Invincible's Reins but hasn't been used in Pandaria. The devs realized that while there were some cool raid mounts like Reins of the Astral Cloud Serpent, they were all RNG based and didn't reward players that were good or persistent. So rewarding players for accomplishing something really special felt right for Tier 16.

Zone Preview

There's also been a lot of raid testing this past week, and my guidmate Daltin of Something Wicked took some pictures of all the testable areas! To recap, you'll first start off in the corrupted Vale of Eternal Blossoms, then move onto the besieged streets of Orgrimmar, and finally invade Garrosh's underground lair. We've got full details on the Siege of Orgrimmar Dungeon Journal here as well.

One-Hand

Two-Hand

One-Hand

Two-Hand

One-Hand

Two-Hand

Siege of Orgrimmar Dungeon Journal

The Dungeon Journal on the 5.4 PTR includes information on all of the bosses in Siege of Orgrimmar. All of them have encounter details in some form, except for the Spoils of Pandaria and Galakras encounters.

Siege of Orgrimmar is broken down into four sections for LFR: Vale of Eternal Sorrows, The Underhold, Gates of Retribution, and Downfall. So far it requires ilvl 500 to queue up for LFR.

Click the cut to read the complete Siege of Orgrimmar Dungeon Journal!

Continuing with our 5.4 PTR coverage, we have many 3D models for Tier 16 and Season 14 gear, as well as Siege of Orgrimmar NPCs like Corrupted Garrosh! Be sure to click on the images to view them with any race in our 3D Modelviewer.

In addition, we have some preliminary details on the Siege of Orgrimmar raid, including Encounter Journal details for encounters like Paragons of the Klaxxi and Garrosh Hellscream.

Kor'kron Dark Shaman – Haromm and Kardris trained thousands of shaman to whisper reverently to the elements to requisition their aid. The army of Garrosh, however, does not ask - they take what they desire in the name of the True Horde. Dark Shamanism forces the elements into servitude, twisting them into burned-out ash, corrupted waters, and toxic air.

General Nazgrim – Once a grunt in service of the former warchief, Thrall, General Nazgrim rose quickly through the ranks after overwhelming victories in Grizzly Hills and the sunken city of Vashj'ir. Fiercly loyal to the Horde and bound by a rigorous code of honor and duty, Nazgrim will hold the line for his warchief until his dying breath.

Malkorok

Spoils of Pandaria

Thok the Bloodthirsty

Siegecrafter Blackfuse

Paragons of the Klaxxi

Garrosh Hellscream – Warchief of the True Horde.

Click the cut to read the Siege of Orgrimmar dungeon journal, including Garrosh's raid encounter!

After the huge news on Thursday that Flex Raiding is coming in Patch 5.4, many players understandably had questions about this new feature. which allows players to form a dynamically-scaling raid between 10 and 25 non-pug players and receive loot that's better than LFR. Bashiok and Taepsilum addressed many of these concerns over the weekend:

Flex is intended for players that are interested in getting weekly groups together for fun and some challenge, but who also don't want super-strict raiding requirements.

Removing Tier Tokens from flex raids is something that's worth considering, as raiders might feel forced to run LFR, Normal, and Flex at the start of a new tier otherwise for bonuses.

Letting people zone in and clear Flex trash with 8 people is something the devs are considering. This would allow to get raids underway while waiting to fill spots.

While it may be "optimal" to clear flex raids with a certain number of players, or do 10-player normal instead of 12-player Flex, Flex Mode isn't really intended for players only interested in efficiency. It's more for people interested in a social experience.

To get "coins" for your bag, pickpocket humanoids--you'll get between 1-4. Coins will display as a buff, Survivor's Bag and can stack up to 50.

If you have the coin buff, you can propel yourself backwards around a zone without landing until you run out of coins--this can only be used outside. Simply target an area you'd like to move away from.

News Round Up

Today's news roundup covers forum posts on some controversial Mists of Pandaria content choices. Ra-Den, the first limited-attempts boss since Wrath of the Lich King, was defeated last week and players were curious if he was too easy. Besides being a heroic-only boss with limited weekly attempts, the encounter also lacked a dungeon journal strategy to further provide a challenge.

And with the news that heroic modes are available for scenarios in 5.3, there's been a lot of discussion about the choice to add new scenarios instead of new dungeons mid-expansion. Several posts have been made on the difference between dungeons and scenarios, scenario rewards, and the development cycle behind creating this content.

Draztal also mentioned that "In patch 5.3 the developers are going to tweak at which point dungeons are made available on the whole level 1-90 range," so perhaps we can expect to see some low-level dungeon tweaks as well.

Throne of Thunder, the new Tier 15 raid, opened on LFR and Heroic difficulty this week. Whether you're running LFR for the new vanity pets or are starting heroics, this guide should have something for you. We've covered the following:

We've updated our guide to Mists of Pandaria's unique legendary questline with a summary of all the new quests and rewards found in Patch 5.2. Completing all the new steps will reward you with a legendary metagem and Chapter III: Two Princes. The new gems are as follows:

This is a bit of a change from obtaining a Sha-Touched weapon in 5.0 and then enhancing it in 5.1, but as explained in our recent Blizzard dev interview, obtaining a weapon is an exciting moment in a new tier and making players constantly upgrade a Sha-Touched weapon would take away that fun. If you still really want a Sha-Touched weapon for either looks or stats, the droprate has been increased in LFR.

Patch 5.2 is filled with new epic upgrades for everyone. In this guide, we'll break down all the new gear by armor type, base stats, and source to help you plan out a gearing route. And if you're looking to get ilvl 480 to step foot in LFR when it opens on March 12th, we've got some tips for you as well.

To keep farm bosses interesting, Thunderforged items have a low chance to drop that are six item levels higher than regular drops. Thunderforged versions can be found for all items, save for tier pieces, on normal and heroic difficulty.

You can also get a full set of ilvl 522 gear between Shado-Pan Assault and crafted items.

To learn more about tier gear and set bonuses, our Item Sets section has been updated to include all versions of Tier 15 and Season 13 itemsets.

If you're looking to get ilvl 480 for Tier 15 LFR, here's what can bolster your ilvl:

The chance of getting loot from Tier 14 raids has been greatly increased and LFR satchels can include lower ilvl versions of trash epics. You can acquire up to 20 Elder Charm of Good Fortune a week now to use on your Tier 14 bonus rolls--they can easily be looted from Trove of the Thunder King around the Isle of Thunder, and also from killing various new rare spawns and doing dailies.

Run Tier 14 LFRs. There are five sections and each gives 0 Valor Points the first time you run it.

Run Heroics. Your first random dungeon of the day is 0 Valor Points and subsequent ones are 0 Valor Points. In addition, several dungeons in 5.2 award more Valor Points because they take slightly more time/effort to complete:

Patch 5.2 is right on the horizon, bringing with it a new raid full of exciting bosses and powerful epic loot! Yesterday I had the opportunity to interview Lead Encounter Developer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas, who shared insights on Throne of Thunder's design as well as on raid-related topics such as Item Upgrades and Thunderforged gear.

Topics covered include:

The decision to implement Ra-den, a limited-attempt heroic-only boss, in Throne of Thunder.

Thoughts on the staggered release of Tier 14 content.

Progression paths for raiders in 5.2 who have yet to complete Tier 14 content.

The multiple purposes behind Thunderforged items and how they can benefit 25-player raids.

Strengths, weaknesses, and possible modifications to the item upgrade system.

The purpose behind the new Feats of Strength (Ahead of the Curve, Cutting Edge) for killing Tier 14 bosses before 5.2's release.

Challenges behind creating legendary weapons and their effects on raids and player participation.

The success of and future plans for Challenge Modes.

As for other Patch 5.2 raid commentary, Guild Ox interviewed Ion Hazzikostas yesterday and their interview focuses on many of the new encounters coming in 5.2. Blizzard also released a Throne of Thunder raid preview earlier this week, in which Ion contributed commentary on all of the new bosses. We've included his comments as well after the interview.

Click the cut for Wowhead's interview and Blizzard's Throne of Thunder raid preview!